Ebola

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT EBOLA - PAGE 5

1. 30 million sign up for do-not-call list More than 30 million Americans have put their names on the government's do-not-call list, a free registry for blocking unsolicited telephone sales pitches, the Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday. The FTC said 3.4 million people signed up in California, 2.2 million in Florida and 2 million in Texas. Eight of every 10 people who joined the list did so online rather than by telephone. 2. COKE FRAUD CASE: Burger King Corp. has received a subpoena from a federal grand jury investigating allegations of fraud at Coca-Cola Co., a Burger King spokesman said Wednesday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs. Driving sobriety tests likely to miss medical pot NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new, small study suggests medicinal marijuana may impair users' driving skills - but might be missed by typical sobriety tests. At doses used in AIDS, cancer and pain patients, people weaved side to side more and had a slower reaction time in the hours after using the drug, researchers from the Netherlands found. Catholic business owners win temporary halt to Obama birth control mandate 2012-07-27T235620Z_2_BRE86Q1MQ_RTROPTC_0_US-CONTRACEPTION-RULIN G.XML ()

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is in the front line of the world's response to the deadly Ebola virus epidemic in Zaire, is finding itself hard pressed to cope with the crisis. Budget constraints have left its highest security laboratory critically understaffed, and there is grave concern that overwork could lead to a fatal accident, officials of the agency here and independent experts said in interviews. In addition, in other laboratories at the agency's headquarters in Atlanta, where work on less dangerous organisms is carried out, the physical conditions are deteriorating and overcrowded.

By Larry Habegger and Dani Burlison, Special to Tribune Newspapers | April 3, 2014

Bermuda: Officials warned swimmers about occasionally high levels of seawater contamination, particularly along southern shores. Research indicates that dumping of raw sewage has increased fecal contamination near beaches to nearly four times the acceptable U.S. standard. Contact with human waste may lead to such ailments as gastroenteritis, ear and eye infections, hepatitis A, respiratory illnesses, staph infections and typhoid. The government said it intends to take action, but meanwhile travelers should consider hepatitis A and typhoid immunizations or stay away from affected beaches.

FREETOWN (Reuters) - An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever that has killed 29 people in Guinea may have spread across the border into neighboring Sierra Leone, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) document and a senior Sierra Leone health official. Guinean health officials have registered 49 cases of infection in three southeastern towns and the capital Conakry since the outbreak was first reported on February 9. While the exact type of the fever, which is characterized by bleeding, has yet to be identified, a senior official in Guinea said on Friday preliminary tests had narrowed down the possibilities to Ebola or Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever.

Whether sealing a deal, showing you're a good sport or just saying hello, handshakes are an integral part of American society. But in some circles, handshakes are becoming something of an endangered species, thanks to swine flu concerns. Northeastern University in Boston did away with handshakes between deans and students at its commencement Friday. And the leader of Maine's Catholics asked worshipers not to shake hands during services, including the traditional "sign of peace."

"The Burning Zone": UPN canceled the well-made, way-cool "Nowhere Man" to make way for this nonsense. "The Burning Zone" takes the disease-of-the-week theme from TV movies one step further. Call it a mutant-disease-of-the-week series. Premiering at 8 p.m. on WPWR-Ch. 50, this is one of the latest of this season's "X-Files"-type bizarre shows. Its Fox Mulder-like character is Dr. Edward Marcase (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who, like Mulder, has an obsession--an almost mystical relationship with diseases.

I would like to commend the Chicago Tribune for calling attention to "Africa--The ailing continent" (Page 1, Jan. 9-11). The three articles featuring sleeping sickness, AIDS and ghastly ebola should make a large number of the population aware of some of the health problems on the continent. Also there are constant wars going on in many of these countries. I am particularly interested in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). My brother, Dr. Jerry J. Galloway, has been a medical missionary in Pendjua for 20 years.

Your readers deserve to know that Africa is experiencing medical triumphs as well as tragedies, such as those described in the series beginning Jan. 9 on Page 1. Although sleeping sickness, HIV infection and Ebola fever are causing much suffering, and some problems are getting worse, the continent has also made great progress in combating river blindness, Guinea worm and polio in recent years. River blindness is under attack in most areas where it occurs, and has already been eliminated as a public health problem in 11 countries as a result of a 25-year campaign led by the World Bank and the World Health Organization.